Oral Answers to Questions

Janet Daby Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

I pay warm tribute to my right hon. Friend. Indeed, I met her recently in connection with her important work, which she has championed for many years. She will be glad to know that women on mother and baby units are supported by multidisciplinary teams to enable mothers to have the positive experience with their babies that she passionately believes in, and I share that belief. We still apply covid compassionate leave, the most recent release having taken place last month. There are individual care management plans for all pregnant women as well. We are in the process of a fundamental review of all policy here to make sure that we are getting it right for as many women as possible.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab) [V]]

During the pandemic, women in prison have experienced an intensified lockdown. Many women are permitted only 30 minutes outside their cell a day and 30 minutes every other day for exercise. Alongside this and many other restrictions, the Ministry of Justice’s most recent safety in custody statistics showed that incidents of self-harm and suicide in women’s prisons have increased by 8% in 2020. I and the public need to know what the Government are going to do to protect these women from having a mental health crisis in prison and to ensure that transformative rehabilitation is effective.

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Lady is right to raise the particular challenges facing women prisoners. There does seem to be a different effect of the current restrictions on women prisoners as opposed to the male estate. Sadly, we have seen rates of self-harm and, indeed, repeated self-harm from individual prisoners increase. I assure her that the female offender strategy that we launched two years ago is at the heart of our considerations. It is all about understanding why a lot of women not just self-harm, but end up in the custodial estate in the first place. We continue with work on that. More investment is coming, with the creation of secure centres. We will continue to look at ways in which we can reimagine and redesign how women are incarcerated. She will be glad to note that overall numbers in the custodial estate remain quite low compared with recent years as a result of covid and, indeed, the approach that the courts have been taking.